We researchers have had the experience that very interesting works for our work are found far from the places where they naturally should be according to their administrative circulation or to the space of geographical belonging that would correspond to them. Twenty-five years ago we made the discovery in the church of Santa Clara in Bogotá (Colombia) of a 17th-century canvas dedicated to Pedro Ortiz de Zárate, murdered in our northwest, which constitutes an exceptional document that surely belonged to a series of evangelizing missionaries.
Few portraits are known of the Jesuits and religious martyred in the 16th and 17th centuries. Some series of superiors of the Society of Jesus painted in the 18th century existed in Peru, as can still be seen today in the church of Maranganí in the Cusco region, although they originally came from the buildings of the Society of Jesus in the city and they were moved after the expulsion of the Jesuits. In this line, we can remember as an example, the mural paintings of the Jesuit Holy Martyrs in Japan in the 16th century, which are found on the walls of the church of Cuernavaca (Mexico), and also canvases in Peru, on the same sets of Jesuits of Japan, located in Cusco.
This oil painting on canvas, which is now in the Museo de Arte Colonial de Bogotá, measures 104 x 85 cm and was restored in 1984, including its cartouche that states: “D. Pedro Ortis de Zarate exemplaríssimo Priest of the city of Iujuy his homeland in Tucuman Resigning burdensome positions, he became Barbarissimos Caribes next to the Fathers of the Company of Jesus of Paraguay until the infidels of Chaco crowned him Martyr, crushed with heavy batons and pierced with darts and cut off the head, they ate it on October 21, 1685”.
As an observation of the text, it can be deduced that the painting was not made in Jujuy or in the region where Ortiz de Zárate worked, given the mention of the "Caribs" as the infidel Indians of the Chaco and the fact that the figure of the martyr is a person young, when the religious from Jujuy was then over 60 years old. It is also necessary to clarify the dates since the death occurred on October 27, 1683. In other words, we are dealing with a representation of the event rather than a portrait made by someone who knew the priest. Regarding the origin of the painting, we can hypothesize that it would have belonged to the collections of the Jesuits of Nueva Granada, since this order was the closest to the evangelizing task of Ortiz de Zárate, which had been formed with them in Córdoba in 1675. On the other hand, it was common for the assets of the Jesuits, expelled in 1767, to be handed over to other religious orders or to parishes.
The Documentation Center for Latin American Architecture (CEDODAL) in 2014 obtained a photo of the painting that allowed, thanks to the generous collaboration of the Bunge y Born Foundation, to make reproductions of the painting that were placed in the Museum of the Cathedral in Jujuy and another in the city of Orán (Salta) near the Zenta Valley region, where he was martyred.
The circumstance of this story acquires special relevance today because on July 2 of this year, Ortiz de Zárate, from Jujuy, who entered religious life when he became a widower, was beatified by the Church together with the Jesuit Antonio Solinas and 18 indigenous and Creoles who were massacred on that occasion. The Argentine bishops and Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, who traveled especially from the Vatican, came to Oran to celebrate this event.
* Special for Hilario. Arts Letters Crafts